Beschreibung:

de Bry, Theodor (1528-1598) and Jacques Le Moyne (1533-1588) Brevis Narratio eorum quae in Florida Americae Provi[n]cia Gallis acciderunt. Frankfurt am Main: Typis Joannis Wecheli, Sumptibus vero Theodori de Bry, 1591. Folio, engraved title, engraved dedication leaf, large engraved vignette of Noah's ark heading the "Benevolo Lectori" leaf; folding engraved map; divisional engraved title; and forty-two plates; lacking colophon leaf H5; bound in full parchment, occasional neat repairs to inner blank margins, repaired tear to map, a1 with small marginal hole repaired, housed in a slipcase, 13 1/2 x 9 1/2 in. Le Moyne traveled to northern Florida with Huguenot settlers in the mid-16th century, making watercolors and ethnographic notes on the Native Americans he observed there. After his death, de Bry engraved this suite of illustrations based on Le Moyne's work. The people with whom the French interacted shared the Timucua language group, and although the name characterizes some other shared customs and a geographical area, the people themselves would not have considered themselves to be a unified group. The Spanish eventually pushed the French out permanently, massacring almost all of the settlers, and the native population was wiped out by the introduction of European diseases, for which they had no immunities. This work carries special significance as it has allowed historians and anthropologists to gain greater insight into this lost Floridian population whose culture pre-dates western contact by centuries. The Timucua were living at the location of today's St. Augustine as early as 1100 A.D. Provenance: The Estate of David Spinney.